**This review contains (some) SPOILERS since I feel I need to mention some plot points** If you don’t want any spoilers read below:

Another has a pretty slow start that doesn’t start to get interesting until five episodes in since it’s explaining the show’s “curse”. Even though the show promises some pretty sweet gore porn it doesn’t deliver very much of it, although the ending is not what most people will be expecting it’s somewhat contrived. The animation has high quality, but not really inspired; however, what delivers the killing blow is that only one character is even somewhat interesting, Mei, but she’s actually pretty unrealistic if you think about the actions she takes. Even worse about the show is that as a horror anime it's not scary, and only slightly creepy. It creates an intresting premise and gives a suprising ending which is why I give it a 6.6/10 (this is also the short verson of the review).

Here’s another review—which is pretty much another opinion—on another anime using another language than I usually watch (I usually watch dubs)…ugh, I couldn’t resist stupid Another puns could I?

Story

Another’s story is a great excuse for gore porn we basically have a cursed classroom where every three, or something, years the classroom at hand gets to have their students killed off until they kill the actual dead person…I mean that was dead before the curse was killing them...but then the only reason there is a dead person is because a class from long ago pretended that a dead person was alive…and now they all die because of it. Confusing? I thought so too.

I will have to bring up that Another isn’t really scary for a horror anime though. It has creepy dolls, although the writers seem to use the dolls as nothing else other than some cheap way to be creepy.

But I digress, the plot to Another is like Final Destination, except this show "tries" to make it a little more interesting by having the curse’s background contain enough details to write a novel, and when the show is done spending the first 4 or 5 episodes explaining the god damn thing the show actually starts to get fun.

I do have one problem with the way the show pulls this off, there’s only (about) four major death scenes that attempt to have the same creative nature of the deaths seen in Final Destination, except not quite as fun to watch since the camera gets its ass out of the death scene so fast it’s as if it was a paranoid socially awkward pervert that got caught peeping.

Alright, but maybe the show isn’t gore porn like I said at first, maybe it’s trying to tell a thought provoking mystery story with the curse. Except that it does take pride in its death scenes since it tries to build up tension before every death (only thing it needed was the Jaws theme). Not to mention the fact that the last two episodes went for the all-out approach that’s so god damned ridicules that it almost turned into an action-comedy at that point. But before that let’s not forget (even though it’s easy to) an elderly couple are the first ones to be axe-crazy…and for no reason—I’m not even kidding. Ok sure, the teacher says one sentence about them having mental problems after the fact, but that’s just lazy writing if I’ve ever seen it before.

On a positive note, at least the mystery was surprising I mean you probably won’t guess it, unless someone spoils it for you.

Animation/Art

Not much to say about this section really, I’ve mentioned how the camera seems to run away from the death scenes a lot, but that’s not necessarily a problem being that it could be doing that so that your imagination fills in the rest. What I do know is spoilers; i.e. the concept of the color of death that is introduced by Mei she describes it as something that doesn’t necessarily have a familiar color that we all know…except fuck that, when the show does show it, it just shows a dark blue color. We’ve all seen dark blue before; if the show really wanted to keep the mystery it shouldn’t have shown the color in the first place

As for the show’s animation, there’s a lot of money thrown at it, but there’s nothing really interesting outside of the intro, Kouichi’s (main character) dreams, and the fucking dolls. Seriously, it’s like the show has its own crew for the dolls…that got fired after the fifth episode.

Sound

A lot like the animation, it’s not bad by any means but not great either it just has a lot of money thrown at it making it half descent. Although the intro sequence music is somewhat interesting, but again, so was the art in the intro.

Characters

Alright (what’s his fucking name again?!), Kouichi is about as interesting as watching a naked man doing jumping jacks…at a nudist gym, solving a Rubik’s cube after entering all of its sides on a cheat program, or finding more useless fucking dolls on this show. He’s boring! His design is nothing to really shout at, His whole character is ran entirely on reactions to what’s going on around him. He’s basically the perfect example of “nothing special”.

Mei, on the other hand at least isn’t boring; even though she is the most unrealistically passive person that ever existed, rivaling that of a rock. Mei at least becomes very important because when her *spoiler tag* power is pulled out of the writer’s asses it’s all up to her to stop the gigantic quagmire that happens at the end…except she doesn’t do anything until almost everyone’s dead THEN she announces the big shocker at the end. Is it me, or is she a little messed up? I mean even when you look past the creepy dolls that surround her, or even the fact that she doesn’t really seem to have a problem when everyone in the class pretends that she doesn’t exist, it’s the fact that she waits till everyone’s dead to stop the madness (then again, maybe that's her revenge for the previous thing).

Going back to her passiveness, when someone is chasing you with a knife, your first reaction is to run from that crazy psychopath, but not Mei, she’s too smart for that, she innovative enough to know that everything will be better if you just dodge the slices with a blank expression in your face—so remember kids: if someone is trying to kill you, don’t lose your cool - even if that's pretty much impossible!

Alright, but are the other characters any good? Well, I’ll be happy to let you know that, they really aren’t. Teshigawara (doofus friend of the main character) has one interesting moment where he really tries to legitimately end it all, but apparently he ends up to be wrong and his reaction to his failure feels genuine, and you end up feeling sorry for the poor sucker. That’s about it, though.

Overall

However, from the sound of this review you’d probably think I’d rather kill the show by firing a Dora at it than anything else, although prepare to be raped in the ear, because I did actually enjoy Another while I was watching it. It was somewhat entertaining and the last two episodes are jack full of some pretty good thrills and pulls a decent “unexpected twist” at the end (regardless of whether or not it was somewhat contrived). It wasn’t really scary, perhaps somewhat creepy, or dark, but not really horrifying, but never too light hearted.

Which is pretty disappointing since the whole reason I watched Another was because it was a horror anime and I’ve yet to find one that’s legitimately scary for me (‘course I’m the kind of person that watches The Exorcist and finds it hilarious). For a horror…anything if it’s not scary that’s a pretty bad thing; like if a comedy isn’t funny.

I can see why this anime is mildly famous since it has a pretty interesting premise, some fucking awesome looking gore porn (what little of it there is), and I could imagine people liking Mei too (even though I don’t). It's closeist resembleance I could see to this show is probably When They Cry. On a side note, at least Another doesn’t degrade itself to pulling off soft-core porn...because that's what the OVA episode is for.

I'm suprised, I thought Mei was boring & not interesting whatsoever. It also pissed me off so, so bad that she had us & the lead guy (can't remember his name) thinking that she really truly did not exist & only the lead guy could see her for many episodes. Like stop fucking around this is the only guy willing to talk to you & you say shit like that. I know she was just beating around the bush, trying to get him to figure it out on his on maybe, but I'm so tired of characters doing that- just come out with it! Don't leave the poor kid thinking he's talking to a ghost or something, that's messed up imo lol.Also they made that other boy have boobs as a joke lol... ps that beautifiul expression will never get old, especially when it's on Miss Sonozaki <3 *swoon*

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